Wireline Internet protocol (IP) networks have traditionally supported a best effort delivery of all traffic. To support enhanced services, multiple types, or classes, of services have been established and assigned certain quality of service (QoS) parameters that manage queues for each service type. The QoS parameters include delay, jitter, error rates, and throughput. The QoS parameters can be provisioned on a per IP connection or per flow basis through mechanisms such as resource reservation protocol (RSVP) or can be provisioned on aggregate flows which are classified into service classes. Internet service providers (ISPs) can utilize the service classes, their associated QoS behavior and QoS provisioning to provide tiered service offerings to their business and consumer consumers.
The IP QoS architecture provides tools for marking IP flows, controlling and shaping the traffic of various IP flows, and managing various IP queues in order to ensure QoS behavior for each class of service. Queue management algorithms include head-drop, tail-drop, first in first out (FIFO) and random early detect (RED). The queue management may be on individual microflows or on aggregate flows which are treated with similar QoS behavior.
Recent proposals for the IP QoS architecture include supporting bandwidth brokers that control and allocate Internet or other network bandwidth. The bandwidth brokers can be programmed with an organization's policies, current allocation traffic, and new requests for allocations. The bandwidth brokers manage the allocations of bandwidth within their network domain and communicate with bandwidth brokers of other network domains to negotiate QoS parameters.
Wireless communications networks use the IP QoS architecture to support transmission of data and/or voice traffic between mobile devices and a wireline network. Typically, wireless consumers sign-up for wireless telephony and data services in a defined coverage area at a specified QoS policy and price. Once outside the coverage area, the wireless services may not be available to a consumer or may only be available at an unknown price and QoS policy. This limits true mobility of the devices within a wide geographic area.